In(k)toxicated
by carbonatedfruit
Summary: Kisame has dealt with his fair share of drunks stumbling into his tattoo parlor with outrageous, equally-drunk demands. But nothing could've ever prepared him to deal with the wasted girl with pink hair who can barely even slur out that she wants a portrait of a slug across her entire back.


_Started: June 13, 2016  
Finished: June 15, 2016_

 _Kisame has dealt with his fair share of drunks stumbling into his tattoo parlor with outrageous, equally-drunk demands. But nothing could've ever prepared him to deal with the wasted girl with pink hair who can barely even slur out that she wants a portrait of a slug across her entire back._

* * *

Ino had definitely told Sakura to do something, but for the life of her, she just couldn't remember what. Somewhere between the drinks at the bar and the dancing at the club, Sakura had forgotten any and every thing not pertaining to her present actions. And that included whatever Ino had told her to do in the future.

They'd parted ways at the club entrance, Ino being whisked away by a man with a devilish smile and really nice arms, and Sakura being drunk enough to forget the existence of fear. Drunk Sakura was a wild card, and she knew that Sober Sakura didn't trust that bitch with anything. Drunk Sakura was too much of a gamble. But that never stopped Sober Sakura from drinking. As unpredictable as Drunk Sakura was, she was also a bundle of never-ending fun. The most fun that Sober Sakura got was being able to scrub into two surgeries in a single shift at the hospital. Talk about _lame_.

And that brought Sakura to the present moment, in which she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk in the scandalous outfit Ino had strapped her into and trying her damn hardest to remember what Ino had told her to do.

But then she remembered something else important, and it was that this was definitely not a nice neighborhood for Sakura to just stand around in at this time of night. And so she concentrated on a new task: finding shelter.

It was well past midnight, so most of the restaurants and commercial buildings surrounding her were dark and closed, with a few exceptions. But Sakura decided that going into a bar would just be counter-productive. Drunk Sakura may not fear death, but she had a reputation of never throwing up to uphold, and she knew that if she so much as smelled any more alcohol, she would be seeing her dinner for a second time.

There was a well-lit window down the street, and Sakura decided to make a beeline for it. It was probably a bank or something; those things always kept their bright as fuck lights on so people could use the ATM after hours. Lord knows she and Ino had used ATMs at two in the morning in the past to get shit loads of cash to throw at the male strippers in the club on the other side of the city. It turned out to be a challenge, journeying down this perilous path in her favorite pair of Louboutins – a gift she'd gotten herself after graduating medical school, as if she wasn't enough in debt. But it was a challenge she rose to with the confidence of a man who had been to jail twice already and wasn't afraid to go back anymore.

She didn't bother looking at the neon letters outside the door before she barged in, akin to a bull on steroids in a china shop that specializes in particularly fragile merchandise.

* * *

To say that Kisame was surprised to hear his door jingle at one in the morning would an understatement. Technically, the parlor was closed, but he liked to stay after hours to work on designs for customers. Being in the parlor gave a certain drive to his creative process that he couldn't achieve in his apartment downtown. But he could've sworn that he'd locked the front door before hunkering down to work on a particularly difficult sketch.

And yet, here he was, faced with the bloodshot eyes of a woman practically half his size. He looked up from his sketch.

"Can I help you?" he asked very politely.

And the woman struggled to focus on him. She didn't seem taken aback by his appearance – like most tended to be – but then again, she also might not even be able to see him clearly. She was squinting like a ninety-year-old woman when she finally opened her mouth.

"What the fuck kind of bank is this?" she asked at a volume a dozen decibels higher than necessary.

Kisame almost felt bad being the one to break the news to her, that this was most definitely not a bank. She seemed so convinced that she'd walked into a place of commerce.

"Ma'am, this isn't a bank; this is a tattoo parlor," he told her, slowly as if talking to a child.

The woman blinked, but there was a delay in the action. She blinked one eye, and slowly but surely the other followed suit. And good Lord, she'd only been in the parlor for about two minutes, and Kisame could already smell the booze on her breath from ten feet away. He could hardly remember the last time he'd been _that_ drunk. It was probably with Itachi, but exactly when, he had no idea.

"A tattoo parlor? You know, I've always wanted a tattoo," she said thoughtfully. She ran a hand through her hair, and Kisame noticed that she was either a natural pink – doubtful though – or she had just gotten her roots re-dyed. He was no stranger to individuals with rainbow colored hair, working in a tattoo parlor and all. Not a day went by that he didn't see a green or red head straight out of the box. Not to mention, his own Mohawk was a deep blue, the same color as all of his tattoos. It went nicely with the lighter blue shade of his skin.

"Is that right? Do you have any idea what you'd want?" Kisame asked, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his legs in her direction. He'd been due for a break anyway.

The woman apparently took this as an invitation to make herself at home and proceeded to drop herself onto the couch in the front of the parlor. She had a look of determined concentration on her face as she worked to take her heels off. After they were off, she lounged on the couch, deep in thought.

There was a silence between them, the only sound coming from the speakers that was playing Kisame's current band obsession.

Just when Kisame was convinced that she had fallen asleep with her eyes open, she yelled out as if she'd just figured out the answers to all of life's biggest questions.

"I'd want… a mural… across my entire back… Of a slug." She seemed extremely proud of herself for constructing that sentence.

Kisame raised an eyebrow.

"A single slug? Filling your entire back? I mean it's possible, but it'd just be a really big slug."

The woman bolted upright.

"You mean, you can do it?" she asked urgently.

"Sure. I'd need some time to sketch it out and – hey what are you doing?" Kisame stopped mid-thought at the sight of the woman standing up and beginning to wiggle out of her skin-tight dress.

She paused mid-strip.

"I'm getting undressed. So you can put this slug on my back. You'll make him badass, right? Give him a sword or something." And she continued to disrobe.

Kisame leapt up from his seat, tugging off his sweatshirt and launching it at the woman who was currently standing in her lacy underwear with her dress pooled at her feet.

"I'm not giving you a tattoo right now!" he half-yelled, half-wailed. And the woman just stood there, holding his massive sweatshirt in her hands. She looked up at him and gave him the most legit puppy-dog-eyes he'd ever experienced in his life, and for a moment, he felt swayed. But then he remembered that he was a big badass tattoo artist with morals and no weaknesses whatsoever.

"I don't tattoo drunk people," he told her as gently as he could muster, you know, for being a big badass tattoo artist with morals and no weaknesses whatsoever.

And then the woman made the most serious face he'd ever seen as she said, "I'm not drunk."

Kisame nearly pissed himself laughing.

Sakura was convinced that taking off her dress was the best decision she'd made all night. Some asshole had spilled the entire contents of his drink down the front of her dress earlier at the club, and ever since, the fabric stank of shitty beer and had stiffened up as the drink had dried. Plus, it gave this hot tattoo artist a chance to give her other clothes to wear, which was always a nice thing. The amount of clothes she'd stolen over the years from Sasuke and Naruto took up more space in her closet than she'd like to admit.

And even though his sweatshirt smelled divine, Sakura was distracted by the fact that he was towering over and laughing at her like she had just told the funniest joke on the planet.

Drunk Sakura was fun alright, but she had a tendency to lie a bit. Sometimes it was about her name or where she was from or what she did for a living. Tonight, it seemed she was trying to pass off as Sober Sakura.

Yeah fucking right.

Sakura pouted.

"I don't like it when people laugh at me," she told him very seriously, and he paused to wipe a stray tear from his eye.

"Yeah, well, I don't like it when trashed ladies lie to me about their sobriety. Especially when their lies test my morality," he said, taking his sweatshirt from her and pulling it down over her head. She was engulfed in his smell all of a sudden, and it was still a little warm from when he'd been wearing it.

Her confusion must've been obvious from her expression, because he continued, "It's policy that we don't tattoo drunk people. Not only is it a terrible decision, it also thins the blood and makes you more likely to bleed."

Now, Sakura was a surgical intern, but that didn't mean she was entirely comfortable with needles. Sure, she could stick an IV in and give vaccinations all day long, but when it came to needles and her own skin, she was just not about it. But Drunk Sakura feared nothing, not even death at this point, and she was ready to bite this bullet.

"Well, I wouldn't get a tattoo if I wasn't drunk, so neither of us are winning here," she told him.

He put his hands on his hips, an amused smirk playing on his lips.

"Maybe that means you shouldn't get a tattoo, darling."

Sakura decided in that moment that she liked the way the term of endearment had rolled off his tongue. She was convinced that his tongue could do other very impressive things, but perhaps that was a discovery for another night because currently Sakura felt like all of the alcohol had hit her in a single second. She fell back onto the couch with the grace of an elephant and did her best to melt into the cushions.

"Hey sweetheart, you okay?" the artist asked, sounding like a concerned mother hen in an instant.

"As much as I like these terms of endearment, the way you say them cannot be good for my health. Please just call me Sakura," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut to avoid seeing the room spin any more.

"I'd tell you that my name's Kisame, but it looks like you're ready to pass the fuck out, Sakura."

And Sakura groaned, because the way he said her name was way hotter than the way he could say any term of endearment. And also because she felt like at any moment, she'd ruin her reputation of never throwing up from alcohol.

It was a fight or flight moment; she could either stay on this couch and hope for the best, or make a beeline for the street and barf on the sidewalk like the classy bitch that she was.

And for the first time ever, Drunk Sakura decided not to fight.

She rolled off the couch in a _very_ sexy manner (not) and immediately regretted the action, feeling the contents of her stomach nearly launch up her throat in retaliation. Not taking the risk of opening her mouth for even a second, Sakura made for the door, swaying a bit along the way. The moment that she was outside and the cool nighttime air hit her face, Sakura felt better. She braced herself on the front window of the store next to the tattoo parlor just in case her stomach had second thoughts. At that moment, all Sakura wanted to do was continue to gulp down breaths of fresh air and squeeze her eyes shut to keep the world from spinning.

She heard the jingle of the parlor's door as it opened, and Kisame came out with a bottle of water.

"You okay?" he asked, putting a massive hand on her shoulder and beginning to rub her back in a soothing manner.

"Just dandy," she told him sarcastically and held out a hand for the water.

She drank it in small sips, despite the fact that she wanted to guzzle it in about 3.5.

"Listen, do you need me to call you a taxi home?"

And suddenly, Sakura gasped.

"That's it!" she yelled, her eyelids flying up to reveal green eyes that were way too bright for someone as drunk as she was. "That's what Ino told me to do! She told me to get a cab and go home!"

Kisame smirked. "I can tell that you're very good at following instructions."

She glared at him before making for the parlor again, ready to grab her heels and her dress and her purse and go home to her nice bed. And that's when she found herself falling.

In her defense, though, the ground had _definitely_ moved out of the way of her feet.

Kisame liked to pride himself in his cat-like reflexes, and this was just further proven when Sakura started swaying and ultimately just fell – luckily, right into his awaiting arms.

"I'm fine," she insisted as he picked her up, but as per usual, that was just Drunk Sakura lying. Instead of pressing the matter, she chose to just use his left pec as a pillow. Bad decision, it turned out, because he had pecs of fucking steel, and Sakura wasn't sure if that was a good thing, because that meant he was ripped, or if that was a bad thing, because they made for terrible pillows.

He carried her back into the parlor and set her down on the couch. "Stay right there. I'll take you home, pinky. Just give me a couple minutes to close up the place for the night."

So Sakura, for the first time that night, followed instructions. She sipped her water as she hummed some inappropriate Top 40's song to herself. She made it through three Top 40's songs before Kisame finally came back out, swirling his key ring around his index finger.

"Do you think you can walk?" he asked, and she nodded her head. But a second later when she tried to stand up, she was going down just as quick. Kisame chuckled and bent down, gesturing for her to climb onto his back.

If Kisame's pecs were steel, then his back had to have been platinum or diamonds or something. Definitely an extremely hard material. And Sakura was all too ready to wrap her arms around his neck and press herself against his back as he hoisted her up, collected her dress and heels and purse and headed towards the door. She took the liberty of hitting the light switch for him on their way out, and Kisame carried her around the corner of the block to the parking lot behind the parlor. He deposited her in the passenger seat and gave her his cell so she could punch in her address. By the time he got into the driver's seat, her address was in and she was out cold. A good minute into the drive, she began to lightly snore.

He was surprised to find that she lived in an apartment building rather close to his own; they had such different lives, such different personalities, and yet she probably had a tiny one-bedroom apartment just like he had.

He parked in the parking garage below her building and hoisted her sleeping form up onto his back again. She mumbled her floor and apartment number as he jostled her awake to move her out of the car, and he dug through her purse to find her keys.

The apartment was dark, and when he turned on the lights, he began to notice little things around her home that gave him hints at who she was when she wasn't drunk. There was a thesis paper on the coffee table on Tetanus, riddled with red markings and corrections. There were men's clothes strewn about, hanging off of chairs or laying on the floor, but the apartment didn't feel like it had a male presence at all. He found her room – not a particularly hard task in this one-bedroom apartment – and laid her on the queen-sized bed. She immediately curled up into her comforter, her pink hair splaying out across her pillow.

Kisame set her purse on the nightstand, even finding her phone charger by her bed and plugging her phone in, and found an unused hanger in her closet to put her dress on. Her heels he left beside the heap of shoes in the bottom of her closet. He found a half-used notebook on her desk and tore out a page. The only working pen he could track down was a pink one, which he found oddly appropriate.

He scribbled a note out to leave on her nightstand for when she woke up.

 _Not sure if you remember last night, but a nice guy named Kisame brought you home after you came stumbling drunk into his tattoo parlor. Yes, you are wearing my sweatshirt, and yes, I'd like it back eventually. But judging by all the guy clothes in your apartment, I'm going to assume that's a desire that will go unfulfilled. Also, don't panic; we didn't do anything. But give me a call sometime and maybe that could change._

He scribbled his name and phone number at the bottom of the note, folded it up, wrote her name on the top, and left it on the nightstand.

He rummaged through her kitchen and medicine cabinet a bit, finding Advil and a glass to fill with water. With those also left on her nightstand, he felt satisfied. His watch told him it was well past two now, and therefore time for him to go to bed. Taking care of drunk girls or not, he still had to be up the next morning to go to work. Itachi would never let him hear the end of it if he slept in late.

He locked the door from the inside and left her building in his black car, the one with the blue detailing he affectionately called "Samehada". He was asleep the moment his head hit his pillow.

* * *

Sakura woke up with a headache that could wake up the dead, and the ringing of a phone that could do the same.

She picked up the phone and answered with a groggy "Hello?"

"Forehead!" Ino screamed, "I've been calling for ages! I _told_ you to call me as soon as you got the taxi home. Do you know how worried I've been?"

Sakura rubbed her head, glancing over at her alarm clock. And that's when she noticed the glass of water, the bottle of Advil, and the note with her name on it.

She paused.

She couldn't remember taking a taxi, but she wasn't sure how else she would've gotten home.

But then she took a deep breath and felt herself drowning in the musky smell of pure _guy_. Sakura glanced down and realized she'd been sleeping in some man's sweatshirt, but a glance to the other side of her bed said that she hadn't necessarily drunkenly taken someone home.

"Pig, I don't think I took a cab home last night…" Sakura said, reaching for the Advil and water first.

"What? Are you not home right now? Turn on your location; I'm calling an uber right now," Ino said, going into mother mode instantly.

"Wait, no, I'm home. I'm fine. I just… don't remember how I got here."

Advil and water downed, Sakura finally reached for the note. She unfolded it and began to read, and that's when the events of last night came rushing back.

The supposed-bank. The big blue guy with the inked skin and the Mohawk. The slug mural. Stripping down to her intimates. Drunk Sakura lying, as usual. Being ready to throw up. Getting taken home in a car as black as night. Being carried up to her apartment and put to bed like a toddler.

And it had all accumulated to the ten digits written in her favorite pink pen at the bottom of this paper.

Sakura said a hasty goodbye to Ino and stared at her phone, trying to make a decision.

And then she typed in ten numbers in an order that was new to her, and the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. And then –

"Hello?"

* * *

A few weeks later, Sakura found herself in a faux-leather chair surrounded by drawings and paintings and sketches.

"I'm going to do a test first, so you can gauge the pain, alright pinky?"

Sakura nodded and bit her lip.

And the inked needle, held by the big badass tattoo artist with morals and no weaknesses whatsoever, lowered to the surface of her skin.

* * *

 _a/n: I'd like to begin by saying the cover image is not the official cover image whatsoever; it's simply a piece of fanart depicting Kisame as a big pierced and tattooed tattoo artist that inspired the creation of this story. I take no credit for that image in any way, shape, or form. If you find the artist and want me to give credit, I'll be more than happy to. :)_

 _As someone who has tattoos and plans to get hella more, the idea of a drunk tattoo is really exciting and entertaining to me (not that I'd ever get one myself ((hopefully)))_

 _also: the whole "Drunk Sakura is a wild card/unpredictable but fun bitch" is definitely based on me during my freshman year of college aka when I started drinking for the first time. the stories that come from Drunk Izzy are trips, I tell you. That hoe once almost flashed a bunch of frat guys to get into a party, but had zero intention of actually going into the party. she was ready to flash these dudes and then just leave empty handed. fuckin classic drunk izzy._


End file.
